Labyrinth

by Kat Richardson

  I’d only once held a piece of the material Grey before: when I’d grabbed and used a ghostly knife in the underground cells of an abandoned prison beneath the streets of London. This was like holding on to electrified ice. It crackled and sizzled with cold that arced up my arm. The moment of time contained in the shard replayed like a broken film as I stared at the shattered piece of memory: twenty seconds of Simondson cowering in the corner while two figures stood in front of him holding heavy objects I couldn’t quite see. Something white moved behind Simondson, coming into view for only a moment. “Break the spell.” The voice was Wygan’s. Then the vision broke off, sharp as the shattered edge of the temporacline.

  I snatched at the next shard of memory, hoping for more information, but all I got was the same wrecked moment of time from different angles, as if the broken temporacline was a hologram, smashed into a dozen pieces but showing the same thing, no matter where you looked. There had to be more. . . .

  I pulled Chaos out of my shirt, holding her tightly by the harness. The ferret looked around, her whiskers twitching. I studied the area where I had no doubt Simondson had died cornered and beaten, cocking my head side to side as I looked for ghostly traces in the unsettled mist. I’d rarely seen temporaclines less than two decades old and the residue of broken time struck me as something else done by Wygan and his minions. It didn’t have the same impact as the hole left at my father’s office, so I guessed it wasn’t the same thing. This wasn’t something locked up and hidden; it was just someone’s way of removing evidence. The void of Grey information was just a convenient side effect for whoever had broken the plane of time. If that was the case, they might have left a few other things behind. . . .

  Chaos jerked and tried to jump from my hands to the floor. I knelt down, keeping a grip on her as she began wiggling like a mad thing and chuckling to herself. She wrenched out of my hands and dove through the mess of broken temporacline, dancing in fury over a tiny spot on the floor and snapping at something dark and gleaming near the corner.

  It was a tiny loop of black energy almost invisible against the filthy floor and the heavy mist of history that lay on it. Black. Dead. The ferret stopped dancing and watched as I reached through the knife-edged circle of shattered time and hooked the thread of Grey energy onto my pinkie, trying not to leave a fingerprint on the dusty floor as I did. The remnant of some lifeless thing unspooled at the speed of chilled molasses, reluctant to reemerge from the grid of Grey energy beneath the city.

  I persisted, standing and pulling with a steady pressure until it came free and cast up a pall of memory and a loop of remembered action. It wasn’t Simondson or his ghost, just a bit of the building’s recent cache of time. The scene unfolded and spread into the corner, playing forward like scratched film, the sound thin and partially covered by the squabbling whisper of the grid that had invaded my head and the noise of the ferret scrambling back into the safety of my shirt.

  Simondson stood in the corner. The light in the memory of the room seemed to flicker and change at random times, as if it were changing color, though to me it was all a dim silver and gray, like an old black-and-white movie on a dirty screen. Two male figures faced Todd Simondson, vampires I thought, until I recognized the stance of one: Bryson Goodall—whatever he was. Even in the loop of memory, pale and shuddering as it was, I could see something magical clinging to Simondson, glittering in the silvery mist like a rage of moths. The sound cut in and out as the second villain swung a long, heavy object into Simondson’s side.

  “. . . know why you did it ...” That was Goodall, I thought.

  Simondson buckled and cowered into the confluence of the walls.

  Wygan walked past, barely casting them a glance, his mouth moving. “. . . the spell. She’ll sniff ...” I thought I could fill in the first part since I’d already seen it. He was telling them to break the spell. Perhaps whatever it was that had compelled Simondson to attack me...?

  Goodall reached out, curling his free hand around Simondson’s head. “Jackass ...” Then he pulled his hand back, closing his fist and yanking the glimmer away. He flinched a little as the web of spell-stuff tore and came dangling and dying into his grip.

  Simondson screamed.

  “. . . rid of him.” Was that Wygan who’d spoken? I couldn’t tell with the sudden howling of Simondson coupled with the garbled muttering in my ears.

  Goodall and his companion belted him with their blunt weapons. Simondson collapsed, but the careful beating went on and the scene darkened, as if someone had turned off the lamps. I thought I smelled something burning—like circuit boards and wires smoldering into flame. I heard a rattle and a roar that chilled my spine. Then the image shuddered and started again.

  I watched for another moment, compelled to learn more even as I felt sickened by what I saw. Until something buzzed and burbled against my hip, insistent and getting louder. . . . I shook myself, dropping the loop of memory. It whipped away into the floor, fading until I could no longer see it in the mist that was receding as I struggled back to normal, pestered to the surface of reality by my cell phone vibrating in my pocket. Chaos rumpled about in my shirt as if she, too, had been shaken from a daze.

  I took a few cautious steps away from the corner death had occupied, groping for my phone as I set my feet only where they would leave no significant marks. I squatted down and answered.

  “Yeah?”

  “Where are you? You’re running late. The patrolmen are heading back around your way.”

  It was Quinton. I took a couple of relieved breaths before I answered. “How long till they’re here?”

  “Five minutes to sight of the office, I’d say, coming from the north on the opposite side of the street.”

  “OK. I’m on the way out. See you at the truck.”

  If I got out fast enough, I could stay to the darkened side of the building below the freeway ramp. They wouldn’t see me until I crossed the street.

  I wanted to look around more and try to figure out what the electrical cables were for, but that was not an option: I didn’t know if the cops would inspect the office building again, hang around the bars across the street, or what. Quinton was taking a risk watching them at this point. They’d notice him if he kept it up. I had to be gone before they came down to this end of the block. I slipped into the Grey and found my way out through another balmy ghost of a summer day, onto the darkened asphalt beneath the freeway.

  I strode out, keeping the building between me and the path of the policemen until I was a long block down. Then I crossed the road, timing myself between two trucks that rattled along the dray-haunted street with the sound of a dozen car wrecks. I nipped down the block until I was below the old Georgetown City Hall building and checked back up the street for the cops.

  No sign. They must have stopped in a shadow or a doorway farther up the road—probably talking to the bouncer of one of the clubs. I made my way around by the long route to the lonely row of houses facing the plastic playfield.

  The old man was still on his porch, but he didn’t pay me any mind this time, his odd aura keeping close as I made my way to Quinton and Grendel, strolling along the edge of the fake grass. The ferret took the first opportunity to abandon the snug confines of my clothing for the luxurious complexity of Quinton’s coat pockets.

  “Find anything?”

  “Some pretty disturbing stuff,” I replied. “Not something the cops could use as probable cause for a search, though. And,” I added, casting a glance toward the strange old man, “I’d rather discuss it elsewhere.”

  Quinton nodded and we piled back into the Land Rover and headed away from Georgetown, looking for sign of any tail as we went.

  NINE

  “Let me drive.” “Huh?” I replied, glancing at Quinton. He raised his eyebrows at me. “I said, pull over and let me drive. You’re thinking too much.” I’d been letting my mind churn and was paying less attention to the road than I should have. But I still didn’t like the implicatio
n. “Are you saying I’m driving badly?”

  “No. I thought you might prefer to do just one thing at a time. Although with these two along, shotgun has to play battlefield negotiator too,” he added, scritching Grendel behind one ear as the dog stuck his head through the gap between the front seats to sniff at Chaos for the dozenth time in as many minutes. The ferret made a hissing noise and gaped her teeth at him.

  My face cramped from the depth of my frown. Maybe I shouldn’t drive after all. . . .

  I pulled over and traded places with Quinton, taking the ferret and putting her into my purse on my lap, which made her bolder. Chaos crawled out at once and up onto my shoulder so she could lord it over the dog from the height of the backrest. Strangely, the dog seemed to think this was much better, too, and laid down with his head on his paws, heaving a sigh. Apparently Grendel was perfectly happy not to be top dog, so long as he knew who was. That reminded me of the vampires’ pack mentality and I felt myself scowling again.

  Quinton put the truck back in gear and pulled into traffic. We hadn’t even discussed where we were going: We were just driving.

  “So what is it you’re thinking?” he asked.

  “That I caused Simondson’s death.”

  “What? I’m sorry you think so, but that’s a load of crap.”

  “Maybe, but it’s still what I’m thinking.”

  “You are not responsible for the death of anyone who ever touched you or knew you. People die. You aren’t responsible for your dad’s death, or that cousin you mentioned, or your ex-boyfriend who called up and put the current game in motion—”

  “Cary did not start this. He’s not even involved.”

  “Except to call you and say cryptic things.”

  I stared at him. “Are you jealous of a dead man?”

  “No, and that’s not the topic. The problem is you sound as if you’re blaming yourself for this guy’s death.”

  “I am.”

  “Don’t. You didn’t do it.”

  “But he wouldn’t be dead if he hadn’t been involved with me.”

  Quinton made an impatient noise. “He wasn’t involved with you. You were investigating him and he went off the deep end and beat you.”

  “But he wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t been . . . bespelled and coerced by Alice and Wygan.”

  “I don’t necessarily believe that.”

  “I saw a loop of memory. I saw Goodall break the spell.”

  “But can you be sure the spell compelled Simondson against his will?”

  “Yes!”

  “I don’t think you can. You don’t know what that spell did, only that there was one. And are you certain that any spell could compel a man into an action that is totally against his nature and inclination?”

  “I’ve pushed on people myself, compelled them to answer questions and even pushed them into actions—”

  “That they already had reason to do, or words they were already thinking, or ideas they had already formulated.”

  And I suddenly wasn’t so sure of my guilt or of the things I’d done. What had I done?

  “This guy wasn’t the nicest, straightest shooter to begin with, you know. What were you investigating him for again?”

  “Fraud—which is not a violent crime.”

  “Was that all he did?”

  I had to think back a bit to remember—two years had passed since then, after all. It hadn’t been a major case in my mind at the time. Not like a pretrial investigation for a murder case or a rape.

  Todd Simondson had embezzled from his dead wife’s estate, stealing from his stepdaughter’s inheritance. He’d done it for years after his wife died—longer than he’d had any legal right to be administrating her estate—by intimidating and manipulating his stepdaughter so she never challenged him. He hadn’t been a nice man; he’d been vain and greedy and emotionally abusive, for certain. But off the top of my head, I couldn’t remember if my client had ever said he’d struck her. She’d implied that he’d hastened her mother’s death, but there’d been no evidence of foul play; the woman had died in the hospital of a blood disease. The sort that creates bruises and freakish bleeding. I creased my brow as I thought harder, wondering if some of the bruises might have had some help in getting there. Simondson had certainly kept his stepdaughter quiet for a while and perhaps his methods crossed over into the physical. Maybe he hadn’t been entirely against solving his problems with women in a violent way.

  If Wygan, through Alice, had led Simondson to believe that I and my investigation were a physical threat to him, that I was dangerous, that it was all right to fix the problem by putting me in the hospital . . . maybe he hadn’t been disinclined to do violence and the spell upon him had only encouraged him to go too far once he started. Most people, no matter how pissed off, wouldn’t have slammed an antique elevator’s security gate on another person’s neck. Especially after they’d beaten that same person’s head against a wall first. He hadn’t seemed like a violent guy when I’d approached him, but I hadn’t been looking into his proclivities in that direction; I’d just been looking at his creative financing.

  I still had some doubt. I didn’t want to think that I’d been the cause of his death—no matter how deserving—or of anyone else’s. Even if it might be true once in a while, I didn’t think I could live with myself if I thought I had the literal touch of death.

  “So, you don’t think it’s my fault, even though Wygan and his crew killed Simondson,” I said.

  “Did they?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. The bit of memory I got to see definitely showed me Wygan and Goodall were involved. I don’t think Goodall was in at the beginning—he wasn’t even around that I know of—but he’s playing on Wygan’s team now. And there’s something really weird about him....”

  “Aside from the vampire thing?”

  “Well, he’s not a vampire, at least not any type I recognize. But he’s something close. And there is something very odd about his energy. I think,” I added, considering the way I’d seen Goodall rip into the web of magic on Simondson, “that he’s got some kind of power. I’m not sure what he is or what the magic does, but I saw him touch the spell and most people can’t even see them. But I don’t think he cast it in the first place. . . . I don’t see how that works, timing-wise, since I never met him before a few weeks ago. If he’d been in the mix then, I’d have expected to at least stumble across him back when—”

  “You were killed.”

  I took a couple of deep breaths before I nodded. “Yeah.” Now I was confused. I wished I knew more about the spell that had been on Simondson and what Goodall had done to remove it. It had hurt and that didn’t seem to be true for most spell-destruction. At least it had never seemed to be the case when I dismantled a spell, but I rarely had anything to do with spells cast on people, so I wasn’t sure. I needed to talk to Mara; she could tell me more about the spells and maybe what Goodall was.

  But that wasn’t going to solve the question of my guilt in Simondson’s death. And regardless of that, it was still Goodall who’d been the direct cause. I wanted to get my hands on Goodall and Wygan, not just because of what they were doing to me but also for what they’d done to Simondson and my father. And wherever I found one of them, I was pretty sure the other would be nearby.

  “Umm . . . why do I think you’re planning something dangerous?” Quinton asked.

  “Because you’ve gotten used to the face I make when I’m pissed off. I have to go after Wygan and Goodall. The sooner the better. They might not know I’ve gotten ahold of Simondson, and the faster I move, the less time they have to guess what I’ll do.”

  Quinton pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything about how stupid I might be or what the risk was. That was one of the things I loved in him: He didn’t lecture me or tell me not to dive into things. If he had information or questions, he spoke up. Otherwise he let me do what I had to.

  “You want me with you?”

  I shook my head.
“No, it’s strictly my gig. I wouldn’t mind having you nearby, but the Danzigers’ is close enough and we need to go there anyway.”

  “We do?”

  “Yeah. We need to drop off the pets before I go do something stupid.”

  TEN

  Quinton drove in loops and meanders up to Queen Anne Hill, checking for anyone watching the Danzigers’ house or the approaches. “You’re sure you don’t want us along?” he asked. “Sure? No. What I’d like is an army at my back, if I’m being honest. But that won’t really help and it will help even less if I lead the only people who can save my impulsive ass into a trap with me.”

  “Do you think it’s a trap?”

  “No. I don’t think Wygan and Goodall have had time to adjust to our disappearance. They know I’m out here somewhere, but vampires—especially Wygan—are arrogant and they may not have any contingency plan in place for my coming to them so soon without having been nabbed by their cronies first. Also—” I cut myself off.

  “Also what?”

  “I don’t think they know.”

  “Know what?”

  I waved my hand through the air as if wiping my words out. “Sorry, I’m going to hold that for now since I’ll have to explain it to the Danzigers, too. Just bear with me a few minutes.”

  Quinton shrugged. “OK.”

  We found a safe place to leave the truck, in a small parking lot near a tiny grocery store, and walked the rest of the way. There was a slight risk in us walking together since either one of us was probably recognizable to most of the vampires in Seattle by now and both of us together was a sure ID. Still, we were better as a team in detecting the bloodsuckers from a distance: I could see and smell them and Quinton had been tinkering with yet another Grey detector system. We had to go a bit out of our way but once again made it through the back gate to the Danzigers’ house safely—at least as far as I could tell. No one had renewed the spell I’d defused earlier so the way was open.